The open-list Mixed Member Proportional system for which the Electoral Reform Committee found consensus.

This could be the best model for Canadian democratic proportional representation.

The
Committee found consensus on proportional representation

In Recommendations 1, 2
and 12, the Committee acknowledged that, of those who wanted change, the
overwhelming majority of testimony was in favour of proportional
representation. The Committee recommends that the Government should develop a
new electoral system with a minimal level of distortion between the popular
will of the electorate and the resultant seat allocations in Parliament, but
not sever the connection between voters and their MP.

The Liberal minority report did not even mention the alternative of the ranked ballot in single-member ridings. At the press conference on the filing of the Committee Report, Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Chair of the Committee) confirmed "no one wants the ranked ballot." A huge step forward.

This
is all consistent with the Mixed Member Proportional system, with open lists
for the regional top-up MPs.

You
have two votes. Your first vote is for your Local MP. Your second vote is for a
candidate for Regional MP. This counts as a vote for that candidate’s party. It
helps elect region-wide MPs for top-up seats.

The Committee’s Report
found consensus onopen-list
MMP.

“Most individuals who favoured reform expressed support for this
system (MMP).” “A majority of participants who advocated for electoral system
change proposed the adoption of an MMP system, suggesting that it maximizes
voter choice.” “Moving to an MMP system would keep the electoral system
relatively simple. The local representation factor seems very familiar and
similar to what [we] know with the current first-past-the-post system. It feels
relatively simple and accessible on the ballot.” “Most respondents to the
e-consultation strongly supported or supported the view that voters should
determine which candidates get elected from a party’s list.”

The Report also discussed the details of MMP
design: “In 2004, the Law Commission recommended
two-thirds of MPs be elected in constituency races and the remaining one-third
be elected from provincial or territorial party lists. The Commission noted
that avoiding increasing the size of the House of Commons was a priority in
determining said ratio.” “One way some countries with MMP systems have
addressed the threat of the election of “fringe” or “extremist” parties is
through the use of thresholds. For example, to be eligible to receive a share
of the party vote seats in New Zealand, a party must garner at least 5% of the
national vote.” Prof. Tanguay noted a built-in kind of threshold with
MMP: “You'd need, probably, at least 10% of votes in
a region to get one of those list seats.” As for the three Territories, “Some
suggested adding a second compensatory MP to each territory to allow for some
degree of proportionality” as the Law Commission recommended in 2004.

Further details are found in the Supplementary
Report of the NDP and Green Party: “(MMP) with 2/3 of the House of
Commons elected to represent direct constituencies, and 1/3 elected as regional
compensatory members.” A group of three ridings will become two larger ridings
each 50% bigger: “As such, since it would not affect current riding boundaries,
a full riding redistribution would be unnecessary.”

The six smaller provinces have 60 MPs, an
average of ten each. Local regions of about ten MPs match Prof. Tanguay’s
comment above. The Hon. Stéphane Dion has advocated regions of similar size, to
prevent creating different political micro-climates in different regions.

An MMP model with 34 local regions, with an
average of 9.85 MPs each for the 335 MPs from the ten provinces, plus six MPs
for the Territories, looks very practical.

Every
region is represented

As Stéphane Dion likes to say “the whole
spectrum of parties, from Greens to Conservatives, must embrace all the regions
of Canada. In each region, they must covet and be able to obtain seats
proportionate to their actual support. This is the main reason why I recommend
replacing our voting system.” And Fair Vote Canada says “we must give rural and
urban voters in every province, territory and regional community effective
votes and fair representation in both government and opposition.”

In all 34 regions, on the votes cast in 2015, voters for all major parties
have a representative. For example, Liberal voters who are not represented today
in Vancouver Island, South and Central Alberta, Northern Alberta, Windsor—Sarnia,
and Barrie—Owen Sound will elect MPs. So will Conservative voters in Atlantic
Canada, Montreal and the western 72% of Quebec, Toronto, Peel Region, Northern
Ontario, the north half of metropolitan Vancouver, and Vancouver Island.

How will regional MPs
operate?

Most
regional MPs will each cover several ridings. Take Saskatchewan as an example.
On the votes cast in October 2015, Liberal voters there would have elected two regional MPs. They might be based in
Saskatoon and Prince Albert, but they would likely have additional offices in
North Battleford and elsewhere, just as MP Kelly Block has offices in
Martensville, Humboldt and Rosetown. This is just the way it’s done in Scotland, where each regional MP normally
covers three local ridings, and holds office hours rotating across them.

Even the Ministry of Democratic Institutions notes “Of
the 34 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
(OECD), Canada is one of only three that continue to use the FPTP system to
elect legislators.” The rest mostly use proportional representation and
have stable majority coalition governments like Germany.

Not my
model

The model I am describing is not my personal
model. I would use more than 33% regional MPs. This is the model I have taken
from the reports outlined above.

Prof. Byron Weber Becker has run the model on his software. It has a Gallagher Index of 2.94, and a Composite Gallagher Index of
4.25.

Looking
at provinces, Ontario shows a Liberal bonus of 3, 1 from the Conservatives, 2
from the Greens. This is because of the Liberal sweep of Toronto, Peel Region and
Oakville, where 52% of the vote gave them all 37 MPs. With only 33%
compensatory MPs, the Liberals get a bonus of 5 MPs there, 3 from the Conservatives, 1
from the NDP, and 1 from the Greens. But another region gives the Conservatives
a bonus, and the other eight regions of Ontario show fully proportional results.

New
Brunswick shows a pattern similar to Toronto: a sweep on 51.6% of the vote,
resulting in a Liberal bonus of 1 MP from the Conservatives. Conversely, the
NDP sweep of six of Vancouver Island’s seven seats means BC shows an NDP bonus of
1 from the Conservatives.

Quebec
is close to perfect: a Liberal bonus of 2 and a Conservative bonus of 1, 2 from
the Greens, 1 from the NDP. In Alberta’s four regions, rounding anomalies give
the Liberals and NDP a bonus of 1 each, 1 from the Conservatives, 1 from the Greens.

What if the Green vote doubles?

Another
way to test whether 33% regional MPs is enough, is to project the outcome if
the Green Party vote doubles, as they expect it would under PR.

A
projection showing their vote doubled from non-voters (everywhere but in Elizabeth
May’s riding of Saanich—Gulf Islands) shows them electing 20 MPs, very close to
the perfect 22 MPs they should elect. They elect MPs in every province
but Newfoundland & Labrador and P.E.I. Again, the sweeps in Toronto and New
Brunswick give the Liberals a bonus of 9 MPs, of which 4 are from the NDP, 2
from the Bloc, 2 from the Greens, and 1 from the Conservatives. Not perfect,
but reasonably proportional.

Which ridings would change?

Every
local region, with about 10 MPs per region, will still have the same number of
MPs as it does today. Those MPs will become 67% local, 33% regional. Wherever
possible, three present ridings will become two larger ridings 50% larger. In
my simulation, I use 16 nine-MP regions, 8 twelve-MP regions, and 7 six-MP
regions. The Boundaries Commissions will make short work of this. Exceptions
will be in only about 14% of ridings, about 49 of the present 338. As well, seven
ridings could be “grandfathered:” the three for the Territories, and four more remote
and aboriginal ridings.

The Law Commission recommended one vital improvement: no closed
lists. All MPs are elected and have faced the voters. If voters for a party are
entitled to elect a regional MP, it will be the party’s regional candidate who
got the most votes across the region.

You
have two votes. With your first vote, you help elect a local MP as we do today.
With the second, you also help elect a few regional MPs: it’s proportional. You
can cast a personal vote for the regional candidate you prefer: it’s
personal.

Could this model use a ranked ballot to elect the local MPs? In most ridings this would make no difference, but it would increase the Liberal bonus to the extent that the Gallagher Index would be 5.93, higher than the target of 5, with a Composite Gallagher Index 6.82. Not recommended.

Technical note

The
calculation for any PR system has to choose a rounding method, to round
fractions up and down. I have used the “largest remainder” calculation, which
Germany used until recently, because it is the simplest and most transparent. In
a 10-MP region, if Party A deserves 3.2 MPs, Party B deserves 3.1, Party C
deserves 2.3, and Party D deserves 1.4, which party gets the tenth seat? Party
D has a remainder of 0.4, the largest remainder. In a region where one party
wins a bonus (“overhang”), I allocate the remaining seats among the remaining
parties by the same calculation.

Appendix - the regions:

My
simulation using this model lets voters elect 221 local MPs and 114 regional
MPs in 34 regions, plus two each from the three Territories.

About Me

Although I am a member of Fair Vote Canada's Council at the federal level, the views expressed on this blog are my own.
I have been a lawyer since 1971, an elected school trustee from 1982 to 1994, past chair of the Board of the Northumberland Community Legal Centre, and so on.